This proposal seeks to establish an undergraduate instructional laboratory for programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The laboratory trains students in the specification, installation and use of PLCs and thus better equips the students to be productive in the present day environment of industrial automation. The laboratory is interdisciplinary in nature, serving the needs of both industrial and mechanical engineering students. The equipment consists of five PLC trainer modules called simulators, a sixth PLC for actual control of cell simulation modules, manufacturing cell simulation modules, and a microcomputer to act as a dedicated server to the PLC network. Students are taught the basics of PLC programming, the programs checked out in the simulation mode by downloading the programs to the 5 PLC simulators through the network server, and finally downloaded into the sixth PLC, which will be in control of the manufacturing cell simulation modules.
